


Their Skin, Your Touch

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: He thinks I could stay here, for a while. No sooner has he thought it, than the world shifts and cracks. One layer overlapping and splintering. It’s so small, the noise that breaks him. The gentlest of sighs right against his ear, and he is laying among the leaves, blood that is not his own seeping through his shirt, cold hands curled around his own.





	Their Skin, Your Touch

Merlin is losing his mind. Slowly and systematically, he can feel his hold on reality shifting. It starts small, and in the arms of a stranger with a crooked nose and flaxen hair. A man with smooth hands and eyes that are green like the sunlight filtered through hanging moss. A man who cups his face, he nips at his lips.

A man who  _ would rather not get attached, thank you.  _ It happens when Merlin is resting his head on the man’s chest, when he is half a sleep and less sated. The man strokes through his hair, scratches his nails across Merlin’s scalp. All well and nice, until he tugs ever so gently at a stray curl over Merlin’s ear and he  _ forgets. _

He forgets Arthur is dead, for just a second, as Arthur’s cruel, teasing fingers pull at his hair. He bolts; abandons his clothing and screws his dignity as he runs through the lower town in the dark between midnight and sunrise.

He curls on his own cot, head caught between his hands, and tries not to scream. It makes sense, to forget, for a moment. He cannot be expected to carry the weight of Arthur’s demise upon his shoulders every second.

He knows that’s not really the issue here.

\---

He doesn’t return to the hanging moss eye. He doesn’t fall into another man’s bed. He doesn’t fall into anyone’s bed. Not for a long time.

She’s beautiful. Her lips are constantly chapped and her hair is the color of the moonlight on wheat, but her eyes are the color of freshly turned earth.

He meets her in a sleepy village with cobblestone roads and shanties held together through will and magic.  Magic that is slowly dying out of this world. He thinks she does not desire him, but the magic that runs every vibrant through his veins. But she is soft and gentle and small between his thighs and she is nothing like the memories hiding beneath his socks.

When she moves against him, he is afraid of breaking her. He is careful and coaxing, earning every pleased noise she makes. She never asks him where he comes from, where is going. She simply lifts the covers to her cot and makes room for him.

He thinks  _ I could stay here, for a while.  _ No sooner has he thought it, than the world shifts and cracks. One layer overlapping and splintering. It’s so small, the noise that breaks him. The gentlest of sighs right against his ear, and he is laying among the leaves, blood that is not his own seeping through his shirt, cold hands curled around his own.

He doesn’t bother running this time, just blinks and he’s a thousand miles away.

\---

He loses track of them, after that. Or he tries to. He tries to forget the dark skinned redhead who punches his shoulder by the lack. Tries to scrub from his mind the dark haired beauty who pressed along him beneath the trees. Blue eyes yelling at him for his grace, a humped nose catching him in a headlock, a gentle smile offering him water.

He’s become a pro at the sudden goodbye. Blink and he’s gone.

But no matter how far he runs, no matter how long he hides, he cannot escape the memories.

A hand on his cheek, laughter in his ear.

He prays once, to any being that listens, to take the weight from his shoulders. God laughs, loud and boisterous, through the mouth of a donkey and Merlin  _ swears  _ he can feel calloused hands on his shoulders pushing him along.

He remembers a promise, a vow that  _ he  _ would return. Merlin had always assumed it was a literal thing, that he’d be flesh and bone again.

He never expected him to return in the touches and sounds of others.

 


End file.
